2006

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0407 Monday, 8 May 2006
From: Al Magary <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 07 May 2006 19:49:38 -0700
Subject: Shakespeare All Over
This is a feel-good post to start your week, and reports the news that
Shakespeare is well and alive all over.
First, a quote from a CSMonitor essay about a Maine schoolteacher adding
to a local tradition by deciding to burn his old files:
"'A' through 'H' went on the burn pile and slowly crackled and hissed
between the logs and branches. There was something satisfying about this
ritual. I went back for 'I' through 'S.' Good-bye Ibsen, Keats, Milton,
New York Times, punctuation tests, Restoration comedy...
"Hold on! Here were several very fat folders. Shakespeare took up six
inches of file-drawer space. They held numerous plays I had used in my
English courses, with critical gems and wonderful writing assignments on
each one. This was the Bard, after all. Could I divest myself of the
greatest writer in the English language?
"Resolution: The Bard lives; my Bard files do not."
The essay is at http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0508/p18s02-hfes.html?s=hns
Meanwhile, reporting outside Maine and around the world, Google daily
brings me a sampling of the Shakespeare Daily News: what's news on the
Rialto in Nashville and Bangladesh. This news is collected by a robot
and occasionally concerns a steeplechaser (Royal Shakespeare),
businesses, and random ordinary folk stuck with an extraordinary
name--recently, a crime victim in the Midlands named Leticia
Shakespeare. But the Thursday and Friday news items seemed specifically
to carry a life-affirming message about the ubiquity of our playwright
in the world, and I relay them to you, slightly edited, to start your
week off right:
*Shakespeare Festival nabs grant*
Nashville Business Journal, TN
http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2006/05/01/daily24.html?jst=b_ln_hl
The NEA awarded a total of $900,000 in grants as part of its Shakespeare
for a New Generation program, which targets middle and high school
students. ...
*Shakespeare, gangs and B-ball*
Concord Monitor, Concord, NH
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060504/REPOSITORY/605040314/1043/NEWS01
... We grilled them on their love of Shakespeare, the pains of
adaptation and, of course, the kissing. Concord Monitor: Why do you
think this play is so timeless? ...
*School shows Shakespeare -- with a Moroccan twist*
OregonLive.com, Portland, OR
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/portland_news/114609572242140.xml&coll=7
Jo Lane, a language arts and theater teacher at the school, shifted
Shakespeare's comedy from Athens as part of her final work on a master's
thesis. ...
*"That Boy Can Read Shakespeare"*
New Haven Independent, CT
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2006/05/that_boy_can_re.html
... And they are working right now on Shakespeare. ... You know,
'Inner-city Kids Read Shakespeare.' It's a clich